The End Of America, Swedeland

Frontier Ruckus

The band has played a thousand-some-odd shows in the past half-decade—across the States and Europe, as well as behind venues, after-hours, aside dumpsters till all requests have been met—but it is possible that this will be your first introduction.

Poised to release their third full-length record on January 29th, 2013 (US, Jan 28th '13 EU), Frontier Ruckus' Eternity of Dimming—is a 20-song double-album, roughly an hour-and-a-half in duration and over 5,500 words in lyrical length. A helluva time to enter their world, but you’re invited even if you've not previously wrapped yourself in the continents of The Orion Songbook (2008) or Deadmalls and Nightfalls (2010). Welcome to the expansive language of songwriter Matthew Milia. Welcome to a raw and unharnessed musicality. Welcome to the snowy television sets and plastic teenage trophies of suburban Detroit.

Eternity of Dimming, the closing chapter of their suburban memory landscape series, is the embodiment of real things, real objects—a realness full of sad gladness and expiration dates. A catalogue so thorough in its literary scope of brutally tender pathos—a candid opening-up of a bottomless domestic junk-drawer, without omission or censor.

The banjo on this record exists because David Jones' dad bought him that very banjo and lessons when he was 11. The trumpet you hear, dented by Zach Nichols' friend's saxophone in junior high band. Snatched by Matthew's father from a church going out of business,, now imprinting its weight into the living room carpeting where we once rug-burned and tickle-tortured with red faces, is the organ pulsing throughout. Ryan Etzcorn's thunderous drumming was informed by quick tunes on glimmering punk rock cassette tapes of yore. The main guitar used to write these songs came out of a weed deal in the 70s. The specificity is endless and heartbreaking, right?

Ignoring the cliched trappings of antiqued rural fetish that seem to make tired the modern folk movement, and the urban love-fest which holds the majority of indie-culture enwrapped, Frontier Ruckus instead celebrates and insulates itself within a world that is obsessively suburban— childhoods realistic and recent enough to remain vividly smoldering with intense memory and graphic personal mythology. The world of oversized 90s obsolescence, pinning down weighty love and familial weirdness—elephantine copy machines in the home offices of the briefly affluent parents of grade-school friends, VHS cassettes rotting sun-bleached on early bedroom shelves, tragic birthday parties, aggressive soccer coaches, grandmothers' oxygen tanks and daytime-TV-time crosswords, porn stashes found behind Taco Bells.

Eternity of Dimming is not of the world that now contains paper-thin computers and full-length records clocking in at 25 minutes. This is the gorgeous and inevitable disintegration of all that we once knew ourselves by, blurring into the graininess of gradual dusk. This is the Eternity of Dimming.

The End Of America

The End of America is not some grand political statement. It is a band of friends, singers, and travelers. Blending three part harmony with rock and americana, the Philadelphia based trio achieves a style that resonates with fans of Ryan Adams as well as Crosby, Stills, Nash, & Young.

Since their inception in 2010, The End of America has recorded and released two EPs and a single, performed at festivals including SXSW, Savannah Stopover, Baltimore Folk Fest, and has performed with the likes of Beck, Anthony Green, Gary Louris of The Jayhawks, and Rocky Votolato.

Brendon Thomas, James Downes, and Trevor Leonard met on tour years prior. All frontmen of previous bands, they formed a trio that would highlight their unique ability to harmonize, and subsequently capture the musical moments they created in the most undressed method possible. Both of their albums Steep Bay and Shakey were recorded live within a few takes: the first in a cabin on battery power, the second in studio to 2-inch tape.
"These three cats blend their voices as effortlessly as Crosby, Stills and Nash. [Steep Bay] is a deeply organic, beautiful album. And the whole thing was written and recorded in 7 days."

Swedeland

Based out of Philadelphia, Swedeland takes its name from the eclectic hidden neighborhood where the seeds of the group were planted. Classically trained singer/guitarist Morgan Pinkstone blazes the way with her powerful voice and timeless stories. She is backed by multi-instrumentalist Jason Zimmerman (master of all things stringed), keyboardist Paul Maraldo (Buffalo Fight, The Vedas) drummer Phil Hutchins (graduate of the U Arts jazz program), and bassist Brian Bloemker (veteran of Philly's hard rock scene, Workhorse III, Dark Lords of Stonehurst). Swedeland's music is as eclectic as it is hauntingly familiar and the songs will stay with you long after the last note.